GLOUCESTER, Va. (WVEC) — Gloucester residents were forced to find alternate routes on Tuesday after an eight-foot-deep, 10-foot-wide sinkhole made Indian Road impassable.
“I’ve been here most of my life and I have never seen nothing like this, never in my life, I mean I’ve been here when hurricanes knocked down trees but nothing like this,” said resident Isaiah Paige.
Paige travels Indian Road on a daily basis. He’s just glad the street didn’t cave in while he was riding his bike overtop of it.
“Thank God I wasn’t riding my bicycle over top of it, thank God I was in the house,” said Paige.
According to the Gloucester County Sheriff’s Office, the sinkhole was first spotted around 5 a.m. Tuesday and it just kept getting bigger and bigger.
“If you get more rain, you are going to lose more road,” said resident Pete Braxton.
In fact, while 13News Now was interviewing Braxton, chunks of the road were falling into the sinkhole.
Robert Heizler, like many residents, depends on Indian Road every day to get to work. Now that it’s closed, another 30 minutes has been added onto his round-trip commute.
"It’s pretty busy, you got your Mathew residents over there and this kind of cuts the fire department off going through here,” said Heizler.
Heizler fears this sinkhole could be just the beginning.
“Oh yeah, oh yeah…because the ground is really soft around here,” said Heizler.
The Sheriff’s Office said these sinkholes can appear following consecutive days of heavy rain, but they are fairly uncommon. VDOT is in charge of making the repairs and right now there is no time table as to when Indian Road may reopen.
“It’s frustrating but it's Mother Nature you are just going to have to deal with it,” said Heizler.